


The House Up the Hill

by pastelpinks



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Real Estate Agent Wonwoo, Romantic Comedy, ghost soonyoung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 08:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelpinks/pseuds/pastelpinks
Summary: Prompt:ghost in the house: GET OUT.real estate agent: chill, it’s me.ghost: oh hey. have you sold it yet.real estate agent: obviously not, idiot.[October 2nd - Second Life]





	The House Up the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> Inktober Day 2! I saw this prompt (from thecw4kids) on tumblr awhile back and I remember laughing at it for two minutes at work. I thought it fit perfectly with the song of the day.

The door creaks ominously as it opens, hints of rust and malleable mosaic glass are obvious on the corners of the vintage pattern lining the edges. A scatter of leaves brush against his shoes as the wind passes through the door, as if pulling him in.

Wonwoo’s careful as he closes the door behind him. Looking straight ahead at the dark hallway that could use a bit of lighting, he tries to flick the switch open but the light just flickers once before it dies out completely. He sighs, seems like the breaker’s been tripped. Again.

Knowing the layout by heart, he walks forward, pulls out his phone and turns on the flashlight, illuminating the living room of the house. There’s shuffling noises behind him and then a woosh of cold air that makes him shiver a bit. He hasn’t opened any windows yet. He takes a few steps, making his way to the breaker that was all the way in the kitchen.

_ “Get out.” _ A voice says, scratchy and imposing. 

Wonwoo stops in his tracks and turns. Sees no one there then proceeds. He hasn’t even taken three steps forward until he gets stopped by some invisible force.

_ “You’re not welcome here.” _ Comes the same voice, only louder and much closer.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes and shines his flashlight towards the mirror and then he sees a person right beside his own reflection, transparent and placating a supposedly terrifying and gory expression on his ghostly pale face.

“_Chill_. It’s me.” Wonwoo says. 

He watches the person’s face morph into something normal and incredibly less bloody. It becomes a face of a young man, eyes slanted upwards, button nose, pierced ears and grinning mouth.

“Oh hey,” He speaks, voice sounding way different from the threatening tone it had a few seconds prior, “Have you sold it yet?”

If he could, he would have slapped the back of the man’s head at this point, “Obviously not, idiot.”

The ghost shrugs a shoulder and materializes—as much as he could—beside Wonwoo. He stays afloat, like he always does as his body keeps its transparency. He wears a hoodie that says **EST. 1996** where he likes to tuck his extremely cold hands into and his body fades into a puff as it goes lower, feet barely visible.

So yes. Wonwoo had his own Casper, the friendly ghost. Except this one was named Hoshi, the ghost of the unsold house on the hill.

He wasn’t always named Hoshi. They just decided on calling him Hoshi because for some reason, the guy didn’t remember a thing from his past life, how he died, what his name was, when he died. Nothing. They both just assumed he was born in ‘96 because of his hoodie and decided that they were the same age, at least they were until Hoshi died because the man didn’t look older than twenty-four.

Wonwoo’s life as a real estate agent wasn’t that exciting, he didn’t hate the job but he didn’t love it either. When his boss told him they needed him to sell the house the was up on the hill, he didn’t know that they meant they needed someone who was not afraid of haunted houses until he got there and got acquainted with the ghost that lived in the house.

_ “Do you drive away literally everyone who comes knocking into the house?” _

_ “Yes. For fun. Because I feel like I used to hate haunted houses in my past life. I guess I’m just being petty and scaring everyone off because it’s funny when I see people almost peeing their pants in fear.” _

_ “You’re evil.” _

_ “Maybe that’s why I haven’t passed on yet.” _

It’s been a month since he got assigned to sell the house on the hill but without much luck because Hoshi seemed to be enjoying scaring everyone—sans Wonwoo—off a little too much for comfort.

He wasn’t going to say it out loud but the past month has been quite interesting because of that and Wonwoo did actually enjoy going back to the house up the hill twice a week, usually on Tuesdays and Saturdays, to check on it and its resident spirit.

When he walks into the kitchen and tugs the breaker open, he sees that everything looked fine. The house wasn’t as dilapidated or as old as it looked from the outside, it was actually a pretty decent house when you see the inside. Wonwoo would’ve loved to buy it if he had the money but he was but a struggling real estate agent so he had to make do with his current living arrangements.

“Hoshi. Stop playing with the electricity.” He says turning to send a look at the floating ghost.

“Huh? Oh. Sorry, one sec.”

With a flick of the ghost’s hand, all the lights come to life and Wonwoo has to blink a few times to get his eyes to adjust to the lighting.

“Thanks.”

“So, still no luck?” Hoshi asks casually floating beside Wonwoo who pulls out a wad of paperwork.

“Not really, no. Normal people don’t really find it appealing to have to live with a ghost for a roommate, you know?” Wonwoo teases and is thankful for the fact that Hoshi was, indeed, a ghost and that his hand only goes through Wonwoo’s head when he tries to smack him.

“Rude! I actually get kinda lonely here you know?” 

“Well, if you tried, you know, _ not _ scaring people off? Then maybe you wouldn’t be lonely.” 

“Nah, where’s the fun in that? Besides, I got you to keep me company.”

Wonwoo shakes his head and tries not to feel giddy at that. For pete’s sake it was a ghost he was talking to, he really needed to go out there and get a life and possibly actual corporeal friends.

Not that he didn’t like his ghost friend, Hoshi was pretty swell, Wonwoo thinks they’d have gotten along really well, maybe might have even became best friends if they’d met in, well, normal standards. As in, both of them alive and not dead.

“Can I ask you a question?” Wonwoo suddenly finds himself asking, looking up from his paperwork.

Hoshi is floating horizontally now, leaning his head on one hand and peering at Wonwoo’s papers, “Ask away.” 

“Do you think you have an unfinished business?” 

Hoshi raises an eyebrow, “Hm. Never really crossed my mind, why?”

Wonwoo shrugs shifting his attention back to his papers, “Nothing, I just thought maybe you still had something left to do here on Earth before you passed on. You know? Like in the movies.”

“And what, you’ll be the trusty human sidekick who’ll help me finish that business?” 

Wonwoo looks up again to see Hoshi smirking at him, he smirks right back, “Please. I’ll be the protagonist. Hero of the story. You’re the DID.”

“The DID...”

“Damsel in Distress.”

“Be thankful there isn’t any inanimate object nearby that I can summon to hit you straight in the face right now because I’d really love to do that.” Hoshi smiles but Wonwoo almost sees a vein pop out of his forehead at that.

—

Wonwoo returns to the house up the hill on Tuesday for another ocular with a possible tenant and Hoshi is right there to greet him with an anti-climatic “Boo!” when Wonwoo comes in first before the client who went back to his car to grab something and because Wonwoo was a boring person, he doesn’t get surprised. Not one bit.

Hoshi rolls his eyes and floats away muttering about kill joys and party pooper real estate agents before disappearing for Wonwoo to give the client a tour of the perfectly normal house.

—

“So I’ve been thinking about what you said last time.” Hoshi says as Wonwoo lays out a blueprint of the house on the counter.

“Which one?” Wonwoo asks, half paying attention.

“About my unfinished business.”

“What about it?”

“What if my unfinished business is to help you sell this house?” 

That makes Wonwoo look up from the blueprint and into Hoshi’s eyes, he thinks they’d be a light brown if he could imagine him being alive, “Why do you think that?”

Hoshi floats down and levels with Wonwoo’s height on the other side of the counter, “Because my memories start and end in this house. I don’t remember how I died but I remember waking up in this house and watching one or two agents and then you walk in. What if my purpose is to help you sell this house?”

Wonwoo wants to think about how it would be great to help Hoshi’s soul find peace but a selfish part of him thinks about how he’d miss his presence if he were to disappear from Wonwoo’s life completely. He wants to slap himself at the thought. He shouldn’t be greedy. 

“Okay, yeah. I’ll be your trusty human sidekick.” Wonwoo smiles at the ghost and Hoshi grins back at him.

—

Two more families take a look at the house and Wonwoo can tell that Hoshi was trying to be as welcoming as he can. The blatant jump scares have been completely deleted from the program and there were only one or two times that the lights have flickered across the second floor hallways.

The first family, a young couple and their four year old, was really nice but tells Wonwoo that the house was a little too big for their small family, they tell him that they appreciate his time and wishes him luck. Wonwoo waves them goodbye and Hoshi appears beside him, “We’ll get the next one, tiger.” 

Wonwoo laughs at him and brushes him off, he doesn’t really mind that he was not able to sell the house just yet. 

—

He thinks that it’s odd that Hoshi doesn’t show up at least once when the second family comes to look at the house. It was an old man and his daughter who looked like she was in her early thirties. The daughter was quiet as Wonwoo showed them the house, the father was incredibly talkative and asked about almost everything there was to know about the house, telling him about how great the backyard was and how they would have great use for all that space and told him about how his son would love to move into this house. At the mention of her brother, the daughter freezes, excuses herself and walks out of the house.

The old man sighs, looking at the front door that was left open, “I’m sorry for my daughter, she didn’t mean to be rude.”

Wonwoo shakes his head, “It’s no big deal, sir.”

The man smiles at Wonwoo and turns to give the house a once over, “My son would really love this house.” He says and then adds, “I can’t wait to show it to him once he wakes up.” The last part was said so softly that Wonwoo barely hears it. It makes Wonwoo pause, feeling like he shouldn’t have heard that. Whatever happened to this man’s son was definitely connected to the way his daughter bolted out of the house.

“Well!” Wonwoo almost jumped in surprise when the man claps a hand over his shoulder, “Thank you for showing us around, young man. You’ve been really helpful! I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I just need to talk with my wife and my daughter.”

“Absolutely, sir. No rush. Thank you for your time.”

“No, thank you.” The old man pats Wonwoo’s shoulder two times before walking away.

Wonwoo waits for Hoshi to materialize before him as soon as the family drives away but he doesn’t show up. He tries sticking around for another hour or two but for the first time since he started trying to sell this house, he feels legitimately alone in it.

—

Hoshi doesn’t show himself on Tuesday either. Or the day after that. It was like he wasn’t even there in the first place.

“Hoshi?” Wonwoo calls out to an empty house.

—

Wonwoo meets with the Kwons two more times before they finalize their decision. They were going to buy the house. 

—

It’s around sunset that Wonwoo drives up the hill and to the house. He walks up the porch, inserts the key into the door and enters the house, looking around.

The orange light from the sun was illuminating the interior of the house beautifully and Wonwoo wondered if Hoshi saw it like this everyday. Wondered if he watched the golden hour bathe the house and watched shadows grow as the sun set into the horizon. Wondered if he was actually as lonely as Wonwoo felt right now.

Maybe Hoshi was right, maybe his purpose was to help Wonwoo sell the house and once the perfect client made their decision to keep the house, his business would finally be over. And he could move on.

Wonwoo walks over to the kitchen counter and leans his elbows on it, burying his head in his hands.

“We did it, you idiot. We sold it.” He murmurs, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to you.” 

Wonwoo lets out a heavy breath and rubs his eyes, he’ll be fine. He’ll move on. Like how Hoshi did. It’s a good thing that his soul finally found peace. He’s sure they’ll meet again someday. Maybe.

—

Wonwoo is sitting on the steps of the front porch of the house waiting for the Kwons to arrive, it was the day he finally turned over the house to the family. He was thirty minutes early because he didn’t want to be that type of person who came later than the client.

He’s turning the house keys in his hands with fifteen minutes to spare when a car drives up the curb. He recognizes it as the daughter’s car. He stands up and brushes off his pants, plastering his business smile on as the daughter exits the driver’s side.

“Miss Kwon.” He greets. 

“Please, Wonwoo, just Minkyung is fine.” The lady smiles up at him and shakes his hand, “Sorry, I know we’re a bit early. Dad had to secure the farm animals before he and mom drove off that’s why he made us come here first. He didn’t want to make you wait too long.”

“It’s no problem at all. I was just going to have you all situated and then I’ll be on my way.”

Minkyung laughs and shakes her head, “I don’t think mom would want that. Mom and dad’s taken a liking to you, they’d definitely want you to stay for dinner, besides you haven’t met Soonyoung yet-“

“Holy shit this house feels like a dream, noona.” Comes an extremely familiar voice from the passenger side, Wonwoo looks over and his entire body almost shuts down, leaving him frozen in place and unable to look away.

That- How- This had to be a dream. Was he hallucinating? He has to blink a few times to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him because the younger Kwon- He- “H- _ Hoshi?” _ Wonwoo mutters, eyes wide, throat constricted.

The younger Kwon stops gaping at the house and stares at Wonwoo, mouth dropping wide open, “Fuck. You weren’t a dream.” He curses and comes around the car, stopping right in front of Wonwoo, light brown eyes staring at him like he was under a microscope. In Wonwoo’s defense, he was doing the same thing.

“H-How?” Wonwoo stutters, heart about to explode. Hoshi was right in front of him. 

Real and tangible. 

Alive and breathing.

“I don’t know, I- I thought you were only a figment of my imagination, I thought-” Wonwoo’s glad he wasn’t the only one tripping over his own words.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Well…”

Hoshi’s mouth closes and opens a few times before the older Kwon is clearing her throat behind them. They both jump, forgetting that they even had company.

“I take it that you two, know each other?” Minkyung raises an eyebrow.

The two boys exchange a look and Hoshi is the one who replies, “Kinda.”

—

The dinner with the Kwons is the weirdest and most interesting meal he’s had in awhile.

Too many times, he had to stop himself from staring at Kwon Soonyoung—Hoshi’s real name, who sat across from him. It wasn’t like he could help it. It was the first time he was seeing the real him and not just the transparent ghostly version of him. 

Also, he was beautiful. Wonwoo totally called it when he thought he’d have beautiful light brown eyes, which lit up whenever he smiled and laughed at a joke his father made. His cheeks were full and his mouth, oh, his mouth. Wonwoo shakes his head, bad brain. Bad bad bad brain.

Apparently, Soonyoung had been in a coma for a month after he got into a terrible dance accident where he fell off the side of the stage in the middle of a performance and hit his head pretty badly. He claims it wasn’t that serious but before Wonwoo could tell him the opposite, Minkyung starts lecturing him about how serious it was, “You were in a freaking coma for a month, Soonyoung!”

“Yeah but it could have been worse. I could have lost my memories, which I didn’t, so that’s a plus right?” 

Minkyung groans and starts stabbing into her meat, grumbling about daredevil boys and why did I have to get stuck with a younger brother who didn’t care about his own safety.

“And how, may I ask, did you boys meet each other?” Mrs. Kwon asks with a smile.

Soonyoung suddenly sends Wonwoo a grin and turns to his mother, “You won’t believe this but it’s one hundred percent a true story. So, this house, about a week ago used to be haunted...”

—

Soonyoung walks Wonwoo out of the house holding a bag of dessert for him to take home because Mrs. Kwon insists.

Wonwoo turns to him as the door closes behind them, “Th- thank you for inviting me to dinner.” He curses in his head as he stumbles over his own words, he’s not usually this inarticulate.

“You’re welcome.” Soonyoung says, not meeting his eyes, “Please feel free to come by anytime. My uh- my parents, I feel like they want to adopt you.” He says fiddling with the plastic bag in his hands and looks like he realizes what he meant to do with the bag before shoving it into Wonwoo’s chest, “D-dessert. From mom.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.” Wonwoo gulps. He could walk away now and forever hold his peace but the last time they parted ways, he wasn’t even able to say goodbye to him. So he steels himself, “Soonyoung.” He says softly, Hoshi’s real name rolling over his tongue in a pleasant manner.

Their fingers brush against each other as Soonyoung looks up, cheeks pink. Wonwoo thinks the color looks good on him and savors the warmth of Soonyoung’s hand, although fleeting, “I’m really glad.” Is all he’s able to say.

“Me too.” Soonyoung breathes, “I’m glad I got into a coma.”

The awkward tension breaks at that and Wonwoo starts laughing, “What are you even saying?” 

“No! It’s just-” Soonyoung says, slapping Wonwoo on the shoulder for laughing, ah, he could do that now, “If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have spirited out of my body and I wouldn’t have met this really boring real estate agent who never got scared of me.”

“I’m really happy I got another chance to meet you again,” Wonwoo says in between his peels of laughter which slows down after awhile as he stares at the pout on Soonyoung’s lips, “Would it be crazy of me to think about wanting to kiss you right now?” He asks and Soonyoung’s eyes widen into saucers, the flush on his cheeks traveling all the way down to his neck.

Soonyoung shakes his head, “No, I- I think I remember daydreaming about holding your hand as a ghost but I was cold as fuck and it just wasn’t physically possible so, _ please, _by all means.” He closes his eyes and Wonwoo’s just about to close the distance between them when the door bursts open. They jump apart like high school boys.

Mr. Kwon is standing with his arms crossed and looking between the two of them, “No making out on my new front porch.” He says and Wonwoo wants to run away but holds still when he feels a hand land on his shoulder, “Hope to see you inside my house again soon, son.” Mr. Kwon says with a teasing grin before rolling his eyes at his own son and walking back into the house, leaving the door wide open.

“Sorry-” Wonwoo starts but his apology is cut short at the warm sensation of Soonyoung’s lips on his cheek.

“See you on Tuesday?” Soonyoung asks, face flushed.

Wonwoo smiles.

“Yeah, Tuesday.”

_On a sudden day when I’m left alone, I’ll take my steps towards you again. When I see my face in your two eyes as if the world has stopped, I will hug you._

**Author's Note:**

> sad endings? idk her!


End file.
